Sustain business awards.

• Author: Madison, Rachel
• Position: Company overview

From constructing buildings that are as energy efficient as they are beautiful to creating innovative processes that reduce waste tenfold many Utah businesses are working daily to protect and improve the environment. These organizations understand that by advancing gree business practices throughout their companies, they are making stride toward a more sustainable community, state and world.

This year, Utah Business celebrates 17 compassionate and revolutional Utah companies with our 2013 Sustainable Business Awards program. Join us in applauding the organizations that have made "going green" one of their top company goals.

eBay Inc.

eBay has had a long-standing commitment to enabling green commerce, which is why the company's newest office building in Draper is considered a monumental success.

The 241,095-square-foot facility is eBay's third LEED Gold-certified building. It features integrated sustainable design elements such as specialized lighting systems supplemented by natural light, a subtloor ventilation system and a two-stage evaporative cooling system.

The facility also uses 30 percent less electricity than a conventional building of its same size--enough energy to power approximately 600 homes for a year--and makes efficient use of water, reducing its burden on the municipal water supply by 35 percent.

The Draper facility isn't the only sustainable building eBay operates. In September, eBay celebrated the completion of the second phase of its South Jordan data center, which is the first in the world to use bloom fuel cells as primary, onsite power. These fuel cells will emit approximately 49 percent less carbon dioxide than eBay's first-phase data center.

"We're deeply committed to enabling greener commerce and have set a number of three-year goals to realize this vision, ranging from sourcing cleaner energy to power our business to expanding our community of users who engage with our greener commerce programs," says Scott Murray, vice president of global customer experience.

Building

Nu Skin Enterprises

Nu Skin Enterprises recently completed its $100 million expansion project at its global headquarters in Provo. The expansion was carefully undertaken with eco-friendly practices in mind.

The Nu Skin Innovation Center is LEED Certified for its environmental design and includes several unique "green" features. The center has a chilled-beam cooling system where water circulates throughout the beams in the building with low-speed fans blowing air across them.

"This is much more efficient than pushing forced air throughout the entire building and uses about 10 to 20 percent less energy to maintain a comfortable temperature," says Matt Burke, director of facilities.

Heat produced by the servers is captured and recycled to help heat the building in the winter, and the Global Network Operations Center floor is elevated with floor vents to circulate air throughout the GNOC and maintain optimal temperature and humidity levels.

In addition, biofiltration beds naturally extract unwanted chemicals from drain water before it goes into...